


looking for you

by icyvanity



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood, Blood and Gore, Gore, M/M, i feel like it isn't as bad as the tags make it seem, stay safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 14:36:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6708685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icyvanity/pseuds/icyvanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the Hatfords hadn't been quick enough in Baltimore, and Neil was killed?<br/>What if the FBI are lying about whose body they have?<br/>What if Andrew doesn't believe them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	looking for you

**Author's Note:**

> "neil died in baltimore and andrew's response involving him searching crowds for neil's face" (requested by [idktheyear](http://idktheyear.tumblr.com/))

“He’s in Baltimore.”

Andrew’s hands close around Kevin’s throat. Baltimore. There are hands on him; he throws them off. Baltimore. More hands, but this time they pull him back. Baltimore. Wymack is yelling and Kevin is on the ground gasping for air, and the Foxes are bruised and battered and _moving_. Baltimore. Kevin is wheezing out the truth to everyone that can hear; Andrew watches as their faces pale.

He’s in Baltimore.

They’re on the road in ten minutes after Kevin tells them, though he can’t say much more after that. Andrew’s hands twitch at his side, still feeling the skin of Kevin’s neck against his palms. The skin of Neil’s neck against his palms. Neil’s lips against his. Andrew presses his fists into his eyes, reveling in the pain of the bruising, how it brings him back.

He’s in Baltimore.

He’s alive. He has to be. Neil Josten is too fucking stubborn to be anything but alive and kicking, already talking his way back into trouble if he’d found his way out of it.

Wymack pulls the bus into a hotel parking lot. He gets a single hotel room, herding them all inside—he drags Kevin along, the rest of the team following with Renee between Andrew and the rest of the team. The upperclassmen take one bed while the underclassmen take the other, but Andrew just stands between them. Abby’s first aid kit makes its way around, though she watches the Foxes patch each other up as she leans back against the window. Dan flips through the TV channels until she finds the local news. Andrew watches it with clenched fists.

He’s in Baltimore.

They’re all in Baltimore. Wymack is trying to get the FBI on the phone when the news breaks. Dan screams and that gets everyone to look; Andrew was already looking and he can’t look away. The news station is broadcasting photos of a crime scene, photos of the blood basement of the Wesninski house—where a massacre could have taken place for the amount of blood. The Butcher’s mugshot flashes across the screen, eyes so similar to Neil’s glaring out at them. They don’t show his body, but they announce his death. They announce his son’s death too, as an afterthought.

He’s not in Baltimore.

He’s dead.

There are no pictures of him to show. He was assumed dead all those years before, and there are no pictures of Alex or Stefan or Chris or any other person Neil had masqueraded as. The only pictures of Neil, other than paparazzi shots and screencaps from Kathy Ferdinand’s interview, are the ones hanging on the walls of the Foxhole Court. The ones Dan printed and taped up herself, with the very same hands that clutch at Matt as sobs rack through their joined bodies.

Andrew doesn’t move. He can’t move. It isn’t true. It can’t be true.

“Andrew—” Wymack starts shakily, but Andrew’s unseeing eyes bore right through him. His eidetic memory has never failed him before, so he’s still seeing the blood and the corpses in the place Neil feared the most.

“I want to see the body,” Andrew says bluntly, hands twitching at his side as they hunger for someone to kill—the way the news had killed Matt and Dan and Andrew. Matt chokes on a sob behind him, but no one speaks.

Wymack puts the phone back to his ear and relays the message. “If you don’t allow this, don’t think he won’t find his way in.” There’s a pause, and Andrew can see Wymack’s hands are shaking as well, holding the phone in a death-grip. “Alright. Tonight?”

* * *

A car had come for Andrew, with dark windows and men in dark suits staring at him out of their dark glasses. He knows they know who he is; Andrew has probably been on their radar for years. It’s only now that they meet, in the long drive to whatever facility the FBI keeps its bodies in.

No matter how many times he says it, he doesn’t believe it. Neil Josten may be a damned idiot, a martyr who never had people to die for before, the reason that Andrew’s control is in shreds; but he can’t be dead. If Andrew believes that, then it’s all over.

The building is surrounded by blooming fields, far from Baltimore, far from any city. It looks like nothing special, but then again, the agents look the same. They don’t speak as they walk with him—one before, one behind—inside. There are other suits to take him down a level, where the temperature is dropped and the air reeks of cleaning products.

This is where they keep the dead.

There are other men inside the room—the morgue, Andrew assumes—but they ignore him and his escorts in favor of the body laid out on the table before them; it’s Nathan. His son is in a bag across the room, secrets zipped up tight inside. One of the men hesitates with his hand on the zipper, looking back to Andrew.

“There’s a reason this wasn’t broadcasted,” he says; when Andrew does nothing but stare back at him, he sighs and unzips the black bag.

Andrew feels the breath leave him as the agent steps back, giving him a clear view of Neil. Or, what was once Neil. There isn’t an inch of unmarred flesh left—though there wasn’t much to begin with—all of it torn off or riddled with precise parallel lines or burned. The hair is burned off, the eyes gouged out, the soft skin of his lips sliced up. His nose was broken, as were each individual bone in his left hand. The right was left well enough alone—perhaps the FBI had arrived and interrupted the torture, or maybe there was just no point maiming a dead body.

Andrew stumbles forward, hands reaching to grip the cold steel table. It can’t hold him together—the crumbling walls of his control had fallen as soon as he caught sight of the pale skin he knew so well. But, looking at the body a second time, he realizes it doesn’t look right. Through the blood, he can see differences. He can see that the intact thumb doesn’t curl the way it should. He can see that the now-separated scar across the abdomen is crooked. He can see that the earlobes are unattached, with no hint of scarring or cutting.

The differences are small, but they’re enough. He can feel relief cracking open inside him, slowly dribbling through him and coupling with heart-wrenching dread; if this isn’t Neil, then where is he? Who got to the Wesninski mansion before the FBI did?

“It’s not him.”

One of the men scoffs. It would be cruel and heartless if Andrew cared what anyone else thought, but he hasn’t in years. “What do you mean?” the man asks.

“Are all federal agents so blind, or do you just choose to be ignorant?” Andrew asks, lifting his head but keeping his eyes trained on the body.

“ _Excuse_ me—”

Andrew ignores the man, picking up one of the hands; he just manages to keep himself from shuddering at the feel of the cold, dead skin. Neil did not feel like this. Neil could never feel like this. Andrew finally looks away from the body, eyes as careful and calculating as he surveys the men as he had the body.

“You knew it wasn’t him.”

The other agent grimaces, “It’s easier this way. Nathaniel was declared dead years ago, but there was never a body to satisfy his father’s contacts. Now we have one, even if it’s not the right body. They won’t be able to tell the difference because Nathaniel grew up. He was no longer the boy they once knew.”

“So you choose to be this stupid,” Andrew muses. “And his name is _Neil_.”

Andrew finds himself surprised that he makes it so far. His hands had wrapped themselves around the agent’s throat and squeezed for a few seconds, before the others shouted and clambered to save the man. Andrew lashes out, catching one man in the stomach and another in the eye—almost mirroring the injury Andrew had sustained earlier in the day. The men overwhelm him, shoving him to his knees with his hands yanked behind his back.

“It’s a felony to attack a federal officer,” one of them snarls, pulling roughly on Andrew’s wrist as they drag him out of the morgue.

“You wouldn’t detain me,” Andrew says. “You don’t want me around.”

“The case is closed. We will not look for Neil Josten or Nathaniel Wesninski or whoever else he claims to be.”

Andrew raises a brow at the closest one, “You act like I need your help.”

He didn’t need anyone’s help. The season was over for the Foxes—what with their lack of a team member bringing them below the qualifying number of players. Andrew would spend every minute, every breath, every heartbeat looking for Neil Josten. And when he found him, Andrew was going to kill Neil himself.

* * *

June is a hot month anywhere in the United States, but especially in the south. Andrew sweats through his black shirts and black pants and black armbands, but flips the sun off instead of changing into more appropriate clothes. Nicky would be exasperated, buying him bottle after bottle of water and watching to make sure he drank them. But, Nicky isn’t here. Andrew’s on his own.

Of course, Charleston is packed with people every day. Andrew doesn’t fit in with the locals or with the tourists, but he manages to blend in well enough most days. Anyone who stares at him in all his black for too long, receives a glare so harsh that most can’t last more than a second longer.

The heat starts getting to him, of that he’s positive. As he looks out at the crowds day after day, he imagines he catches a glimpse of auburn hair or a flash of blue eyes. Andrew knows Neil is alive, but he doesn’t expect it to be easy to find the man; nothing about Neil Josten is ever easy. He learns to tune out the hallucinations after a while, choosing instead to delve into internet archives for anything that could lead to Neil.

Andrew thinks of the team sometimes—how they cried and cursed the FBI when Andrew told them that Neil wasn’t dead, how Matt’s last words to him were a broken “Go find him,”, how he no longer had Renee to spar with. He’s swimming in his own anger and frustration. It has been _months_ since Nathan Wesninski’s death and Neil Josten’s disappearance, and Andrew is no closer to finding Neil than he was on his first day in Charleston.

Charleston means a close proximity to Edgar Allen and the Ravens, but also to the members of the Yakuza who do their business at Castle Evermore. If anyone is in contact with Neil—or his mother’s family, Andrew is beginning to suspect—it would be the Moriyamas. Though they were the Butcher’s keepers, they would never turn down an offer as advantageous as an alliance with the Hatfords.

The sun starts to dip down, the sky darkening and the people retreating inside of casinos and bars and restaurants for the foreseeable future. Andrew rises from his chair, throwing a ten onto the table for his drink. His hotel is close-by, on a street just off of the main thoroughfare. He can see blue in his peripheral vision, but he keeps his head straight.

No one else is on the street, preferring the sights the city has to offer over a night in at a hotel. He can hear dogs barking a few streets over, and the scrape of shoes against the pavement of the alley to his left. Andrew sighs; now it seems he’s started hearing Neil too. If he looked left, would he see the auburn hair and blue eyes, or just a mocking empty alley? He doesn’t care to be messed—

“ _Andrew_.”

It’s just a whisper, but Andrew freezes. He doesn’t want to turn around, just to find no one of importance behind him. But, he recognizes that voice, though it’s been months since he heard it last. Andrew turns slowly, not trusting himself to breathe.

It’s Neil, but it’s not.

Andrew closes the distance between them in three short strides, grabbing tight to Neil and  pushing him up against the wall of the hotel. His hand is around Neil’s throat before he can stop himself, and it spasms as Andrew looks at Neil. Where there was once a wretched tattoo, there’s a perfectly circular burn. His cheeks are lined with precise scars, which are reflected on his arms as well—but, there they are paired with more of the burns. His hands—which could hold an exy racquet as well as they held onto Andrew’s being—were torn up and scarred over, with more brutal stripes cut into their backs.

Andrew takes a shaky breath before he looks up into Neil’s eyes; they remain unchanged, except for the reverent expression in them that makes Andrew want to punch something. Instead, he shifts his hand, tightening his thumb against Neil’s windpipe, and pulls Neil’s forehead to rest against his own.

“I’m going to kill you,” Andrew grits out.

“Then do it,” Neil whispers, “or did you start making empty promises?”

Andrew glares at Neil. He can see Neil’s hands hesitating to touch him, but Andrew grabs him by the wrist to press Neil’s hand against his own cheek, eyes falling closed at the simple touch.

“You’re here,” Andrew says.

Neil chokes back a giddy laugh, circling the pad of his thumb against Andrew’s jaw. “I’m here,” he said.

Andrew opens his eyes, glaring at Neil through his lashes, “I’m not so sure I believe that.”

He sees Neil swallow, before glancing around. Andrew knows they’re in an alley with his hotel at Neil’s back, but someone could walk by at any moment. There’s a service door to their left, so Andrew detaches himself from Neil—though his hand finds its way to wrap around Neil’s wrist in seconds. Neil’s pulse is fast as Andrew pulls the door open and ushers him through, as they sneak past the front desk and up the stairs, as they enter Andrew’s room. They both sit at the edge of the bed, quiet as Andrew traces the scars of Neil’s wrists and commits them to memory. Neil speaks first.

“You’ve been looking for me?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

He loosens his hold on Neil’s wrist, but does the unthinkable and intertwines their fingers instead. He pulls Neil’s hand up for inspection, tracing some of the ruined skin with his fingertips. Neil sucks in a breath at the feeling and Andrew glances up at him. No one had touched Neil without animosity or hatred or torture on the mind in months; even though Andrew claims to hate him, his hands are gentle and his eyes are calm.

“What happened?” Andrew asks.

Neil just looks at him, as though he doesn’t believe Andrew was here either. Whatever this had been before Baltimore, it’s different now; how couldn’t it be, with Neil disappearing like smoke in a windstorm, leaving Andrew with nothing but a name and a cut-up body? Andrew feels anger bubbling inside of him, but he manages to control it. This was still the basis of everything—Andrew and Neil sitting side by side, holding themselves together as though their lives depended on it, on _this_.

Neil takes a deep breath, gripping Andrew’s hand. He tells him everything—about the riot, about Baltimore, about his father and Lola’s torture, and his uncle Stuart’s subsequent kidnapping of him. He doesn’t spare Andrew the details, describing the car ride and his father’s threats to cut his tendons. Neil explains the Hatfords, how they took him in and tried to make him one of them, like his mother would’ve wanted.

They were wrong; his mother would’ve wanted him dead rather than owned by anyone else again.

“I told them I wouldn’t stay, but they told me there was no reason for me to go back early. The season was over and the world thought I was dead. They were right, of course. But, I couldn’t stop fighting. I didn’t think anyone was looking for me, but I hoped. _God_ , I hoped.”

Andrew presses his head into Neil’s shoulder. He can feel every place their bodies touch—his forehead and hands and the entire right side of his body—and it’s too much, but not enough. Neil drops his head closer but stops just short of resting against Andrew’s.

“Yes or no?” he whispers.

“Yes.”

Neil’s lips press against Andrew’s forehead for a long moment, before he pulls away to rest his head there. Their brief moment of peace is shattered by vibrations between their bodies, making them both jump. Neil’s hand breaks away from Andrew’s, shaking as it clamps down on the opposite wrist, rubbing the new scars there. Andrew’s jaw clenches as realization settles deep inside him; they had restrained him, forced him to stay with them when he had so wanted to leave.

Andrew reaches slowly for Neil’s pocket, somewhat surprised the phone hadn’t gone to voicemail yet. Neil nods, and Andrew slips his fingers inside, pulling the flip-phone out. The name _Stuart_ flashes across the screen.

Andrew flips it open and puts it to his ear. “Hello, Stuart,” he says, deathly calm.

“Who is this?” Stuart demands after a moment of shocked silence.

“A friend of your nephew. He’ll be staying with me from now on, so you won’t be needed.”

Stuart splutters, “No! He stays with us. What have you done with him?”

“I could ask the same of you. He has more scars than he did the last time I saw him, and that isn’t to my liking,” Andrew says.

“That is not for _you_ to decide,” Stuart says.

“Actually,” Andrew replies, “I think it is. If you really want to see him again, come to one of Palmetto State’s game. You can see him from behind the bulletproof glass.”

“Put Nathaniel on,” Stuart demands.

Andrew glances up at Neil; he had held the phone to his right ear, close enough to Neil’s own that they both heard the request. Neil’s eyes are wide and comprehending, but he makes no move to speak.

“Sorry, but I don’t know a Nathaniel.”

Neil breathes a sigh of relief, burying one hand into Andrew’s hair and pulling him closer. The angle isn’t ideal, with the phone stuck between Andrew’s cheek and the jut of Neil’s collarbone, but Andrew isn’t about to complain. Stuart starts yelling, the vibrations of his anger seeping into Neil’s shirt. Neither of them pays attention to a word until Stuart calms down.

Finally he says, “Neil, then?”

“Neil doesn’t want to talk to you,” Andrew says after Neil shakes his head vigorously against his. “He’ll be in South Carolina with the Foxes.” He doesn’t have to add that they’re more of family than the Hatfords ever were, but Stuart seems to catch on.

“And what is he to you?”

“Honestly,” Andrew sighs, “he’s nothing to me. But that’s more than he’ll ever be to you or to the Moriyamas. So, I bid thee good day, sir.” Andrew snaps the phone shut before Stuart can respond, tossing it to the floor at their feet.

“You say that a lot,” Neil says. “That I’m nothing.”

“Would I lie to you?” Andrew asks.

Neil shrugs, lifting his head; Andrew does as well. “Probably,” he says, “if it’s for my own good.”

Andrew glares at him, but it lacks the anger now that Stuart has been dealt with. “Nothing in this world is for your own good.”

“Can we go home—back to Palmetto State? Do they even know I’m alive? Do they even want me to come back? Do you even—”

Andrew claps his hand over Neil’s mouth, stifling his questions. “I’d forgotten how annoying you are.”

Neil just looks at him, and Andrew still hates him. He hates the smirk against his palm and the glint of joy in Neil’s eyes—his father is dead, his mother’s family doesn’t own him, and he’s finally free to _live_ —and he especially hates how Neil is looking at him now.

Andrew drops his hand.

“Yes or no?” he asks. Neil smiles, and he hates him more.

“Are you going to shut me up?” Neil asks; Andrew hates questions answered with more questions, so Neil simply says, “ _Yes_.”

Andrew kisses him, not unkindly. He kisses the smirk off of Neil’s face and the words off his lips and the thoughts out of his brain. There are more _yes_ ’s exchanged until they fall back on the bed, lips pressed against each other now and for the foreseeable future. There’s a sense of the usual urgency—the kind that satisfies Andrew, because he knows this is real—but they know they have time. Tomorrow, they’ll catch a train out of Charleston heading back to Columbia. They’ll go back to the Foxes and Kevin will run them into the ground with Neil’s extra practices. Things won’t go back to the way they were before and they won’t be normal; but, with a team like the Foxes, is anything ever _normal?_

But that is for tomorrow, and all the days to come. Right now, Andrew can barely think past Neil’s lips and hands and bare skin, and Neil isn’t faring any better. Andrew pulls back to look at Neil, his breath coming out in uncontrolled pants.

“I hate you.”

Neil, who has spent his entire life looking out for lies, knows the truth behind Andrew’s words. With a hint of a smile he says, “I know,” and reaches for Andrew again.

**Author's Note:**

> [read on tumbr](http://lady-gryffindor.tumblr.com/post/143663811383/if-youre-still-taking-prompts-i-have-a)


End file.
